en, as it please, afoot or on thy steed,
Attack me, so it be with arms in hand.
I am content all vantage to afford;
Such my desire to try thee with the sword!"

XVIII
Not long Rinaldo paused: he cried, "I plight
My promise not to balk thee of the fray;
And, for I deem thou art a valiant knight,
And lest thou umbrage take at mine array,
These shall go on before, nor other wight,
Beside a page, to hold my horse, shall stay."
So spake Mount Alban's lord; and to his band,
To wend their way the warrior gave command.

XIX
To that king paladin with praise replied
The stranger peer; alighting on the plain,
Rinaldo to the valet, at his side,
Consigned the goodly steed Baiardo's rein,
And when his banner he no longer spied,
Now widely distant with the warrior's train,
His buckler braced, his biting faulchion drew,
And to the field defied the knight anew.

XX
And now each other they in fight assail:
Was never seen a feller strife in show.
Neither believes his foeman can avail,
Long, in that fierce debate, against his blow:
But when they knew, well neighed in doubtful scale,
That they were fitly matched, for weal or woe,
They laid their fury and their pride apart,
And for their vantage practised every art.

XXI
Their cruel and despiteous blows resound,
Re-echoing wide, what time the valiant twain
With cantlets of their shields now strew the ground,
Now with their faulchions sever plate and chain.
Yet more behoves to parry than to wound,
If either knight his footing would maintain;
For the first fault in fence, by either made,
Will with eternal mischief be appaid.

XXII
One hour and more than half another, stood
The knights in battle; and the golden sun
Already was beneath the tumbling flood,
And the horizon veiled with darkness dun:
Nor yet had they reposed, nor interlude
Had been, since that despiteous fight begun,
'Twixt these, whom neither ire nor rancour warms,
But simple thirst of fame excites to arms.

XXIII
Rinaldo in himself revolving weighed
Who was the stranger knight, so passing stout;
That not alone him bravely had gainsaid,
But oft endangered in that deadly bout;
And has so harassed with his furious blade,
He of its final issue stands in doubt.
-- He that the strife was ended would be fain,
So that his knightly honour took no stain.

XXIV
The stranger knight, upon the other